Put your card in a vessel and fill with acetone until the card is completely submerged. Cover the container so the acetone doesn't all evaporate, and wait 15-30 minutes.
All you need to do is immerse the card during 30 minutes in some acetone to dissolve the plastic and uncover the electronics hidden inside. Note that this is a destructive operation, and you won't be able to pay anything with your credit card afterwards.
Coming into contact with refrigerator magnets, clasps on wallets, and magnets on the back of tape measures and flashlights can demagnetize a credit or debit card. When you place your card in your wallet, but sure not to rub it up against the metal clasp and place it as far away from it as possible.
While regular kitchen scissors aren't likely to do much damage against a metal credit card, you should be able to easily cut it into pieces with tin snips. Tin snips are shears used to cut sheet metal and other tough materials, and they should do the trick with any metal card you have lying around.
“We recommend that consumers cut through the EMV chip, then further cut the card a few times along the short side, and dispose of the sections in more than one trash bag,” says Sarah Grano, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association. Or feed plastic cards into a paper shredder designed to handle them.
Once you've received your replacement in the mail from your issuer, you can cut the card with scissors and throw the pieces away in the trash. Some paper shredders also have a slot for credit and debit cards that makes it easy to destroy them along with other important documents you no longer need.
Luckily EMV chips aren't affected by magnets. However, scratches or prolonged exposure to water can cause damage or make them stop working altogether.
Cut through the security code (CV2 – last 3 digits on the back of your card) horizontally and then vertically over the numbers. Tip: Unless you have an industrial shredder, don't place your card through a standard home-office shredder as the card could potentially break it.
Don't burn it.
Yes, fire can melt your credit card. Unfortunately, it can also damage your health.
Phones do create a magnetic field, but thankfully, it isn't strong enough to demagnetize credit or debit cards. The small magnet in the phone's speaker is the main culprit of generatingthe magnetic field. This field, however, is too weak to cause sufficient damage to a credit card magnetic strip, with some exceptions.
Make a cut 5 mm deep anywhere around the debit card or snip off a corner. This will break the antenna path and stop power to the chip when held near a reader. That's it.
While your phone does create a magnetic field, it isn't strong enough to demagnetize your credit cards. The magnetic field comes from a small magnet located at your phone's speaker. This is too weak to cause any immediate damage to your credit card.
Put your card in a vessel and fill with acetone until the card is completely submerged. Cover the container so the acetone doesn't all evaporate, and wait 15-30 minutes.
The key difference between acetone and IPA is that acetone has a C=O. bond in the middle of the chemical structure, whereas isopropyl alcohol has a C-OH group in the middle of the chemical structure. Despite the differences in structures between acetone and IPA, both are highly soluble.
Acetone is not able to dissolve HDPE. Styrofoam is interpreted in acetone. Acetone can break styrofoam very easily because styrofoam disappears in seconds in acetone.
If your expired credit card has a chip—the metallic square you tap or dip into a card reader at a retail point of sale—shred it only if your machine is equipped to also shred CDs. Otherwise, shredding the chip could damage the mechanism.
Luckily most shredders can shred credit cards and other plastic cards you want to get rid of in a secure way. But advised is to look carefully at the specifications or the features of the shredder if the machine can really shred credit cards for you.
It is better to keep unused credit cards open than to cancel them because even unused credit cards with a $0 balance will still report positive information to the credit bureaus each month. It is especially worthwhile to keep an unused credit card open when the account does not have an annual fee.
A common way to steal debit or credit card information is called 'skimming' or 'swiping,' where thieves pass your card through a device that reads and records the information from the magnetic swipe. Keep Your PIN a Secret. Never write it on your card or store it with your card.
So what do fraudsters do with stolen credit card information? It's valuable data, so many sell it to someone else. If they do use it for themselves, they may buy anything from physical, luxury items and electronics, to online goods like video game credits and business services. Gift cards are a popular choice.
Using card skimmers or shimmers
Thieves install skimmers on ATMs, gas pumps, and other publicly available card readers. Shimmers are the natural evolution of card skimmers. But instead of stealing data from your card's magnetic strip, they go inside the reader and steal your chip information.
Credit cards usually use ferrous oxide with a covering of plastic. The plastic protects your card from grazes and scratches. However, if another magnet is held close to your credit card for prolonged exposure, your credit card can lose its functionality and may stop working.
If you find the magnetic stripe on your credit card is no longer working, it may have become demagnetized.
Can Chip-based Credit Cards be Skimmed? Theoretically, yes. But it takes a little longer for the information on the chip to be cloned. Chips store encrypted information, while magstripes are easier to clone and can be scanned in one swipe.